Original Tenant: A&P
Address: 261 Comly Rd, Lincoln Park, NJ
Address: 261 Comly Rd, Lincoln Park, NJ
Opened: 1970s
Closed: 1990s
Later Tenants: Cost Cutters/Drug Fair combination > Walgreens > ACE Hardware
Photographed: June 2021
Later Tenants: Cost Cutters/Drug Fair combination > Walgreens > ACE Hardware
Photographed: June 2021
Our second stop in Lincoln Park is this 29,000 square foot former A&P which closed by the 90s after the current Lincoln Park ShopRite opened in 1987 and then became a Cost Cutters-Drug Fair combination store. It became a Walgreens briefly before Walgreens moved to a former Rite Aid property around the corner at 153 Main St, demolishing the Rite Aid (which itself was a former ShopRite). This then became Costello's ACE Hardware. Our other stops for the day are the current ShopRite in town and Wolfson's Market just outside of town, and tomorrow, we are heading north (admittedly outside of the Parsippany/Great Piece Meadows area just for the day) for three posts in Butler and Kinnelon -- check out one here on The Market Report, one on The Independent Edition, and one on Grocery Archaeology!
This store was not a Centennial, having been built in an era when A&P began to open larger supermarkets. This A&P opened on May 21, 1974 and closed in January 1994. As you would expect, the A&P's closure was due to its inability to compete with the Lincoln Park ShopRite.
ReplyDelete--A&P Fan
Certainly is a different design. The question is what parts are from who.
DeleteI'd think the (right) end entry may be left from A&P (that was common, oftentimes having doors on both ends), the door at the left maybe from the time it was split, but the rest (things like the tiles on the front and the round white section on the roof) are quite the mystery items.
Also kind of funny in that we have an old A&P in this area that is now a True Value store - that still has the double end entries, then they added an inner wall to make a vestibule with a 2nd set of doors.
However, the outer section also has glass block decor, and that came from it being for a time between A&P and True Value a Star Market (not the one connected to Albertsons, but one of two separate small chains that used the name in NY State).
That store had been up the road, and moved to the A&P location as it was at a main intersection (the end of one US Route intersecting with two other US Routes that run concurrently through the area). Unfortunately, after a larger chain (now Hannaford) opened across the street that was too much, while they might have hung on longer in their original location (as there was nothing else there, and the next closest store would have been the 1977 GU I referred to in another post).
Thanks for the history here!
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